We have two Hobie I9s kayaks and the one that has seen very little use leaks air from the center bladder. It is a slow leak, the boat gets soft and hard to use after about 45 minutes. I've used soapy water over the valve and most everywhere else but nothing shows an obvious leak.

Is there a way to get this fixed where we don't lose the rest of our short (Minnesota) summer?

I drove over to the dealer. The upside is I can use their demo I9S except on their weekly demo days. That is way better than expected. The downside is that they have never cut open an inflatable and mine would be their first, a practice model as it were. I'm told the warranty department convinced them that all they have to do is follow the instructions. Apparently they haven't met these guys.

I am only relaying what the kid at the dealership told me. It was obvious to me I would not be able to dissuade them from whatever cutting spree they had in mind (picture a 60 pound patch-covered Franken-Yak!). Sad because now we have the "opportunity" to pay for shipping to the factory to get warranty work done. Looking on the bright side at least the factory will accept a boat shipped directly to them.

Thanks for all your help Matt, we'll try to get that boat shipped this week.

I'm wondering what the status is on repairs. We sent the boat 2 weeks ago today and it was received at the factory last Friday. I doesn't seem like repairs should take all that long but what do I know? Hopefully it will be back in action soon!

A note about the packing/shipping charges: I did drive over to the dealer and ask for one of their boxes but that didn't work out so well. At that point we decided to have the kayak professionally boxed and shipped.

Is there any word on the repairs to our I9s kayak? We sent it three weeks ago and it was signed for two weeks ago. Since we haven't received any return shipping notice I assume it is still at the factory waiting to be fixed. I can't imagine that fixing a leak can take more than two weeks.

When I first posted (another thread - 7/6/10) I was concerned that this problem/repair would put that boat out of commission for the entire summer. Unfortunately my concerns have proven to be true... (this is Minnesota, July and August is pretty much the whole summer)